MTA Issues 10,000 Defective Monthly MetroCards to Commuters

The Monday after Thanksgiving, already a pretty fraught day of post-travel and post- or current Thanksgiving hangover, was a whole lot worse than normal for about 10,000 commuters who signed up for monthly MetroCard users. Thanks to a technical glitch, the combination MetroCard and Long Island Rail Road/Metro-North issued by mail for December had zero days worth of rides on them, leaving a whole lot of angry people banging on the touchscreens of MTA kiosks yesterday morning.

The MTA’s solution, the Times reports, was to tell the commuters just to buy a monthly pass to the subway, and the charge for their December card would be erased from their accounts. Well, gee, thanks MTA. With the ever-so-efficient MTA telephone system jammed with angry callers on Monday afternoon, subway authorities were mostly just waving customers with the defective cards through. About 7,100 LIRR customers were affected, as well as 2,800 Metro North riders.

All Mail&Ride monthly @LIRR@MetroNorth tkt holders who have unltd MetroCard on reverse side will automatically receive $119 credit for Dec.

Persnickety New Yorkers, who are understandably not cool with the MTA casually making their lives much worse, were not really appeased with the authority’s communication methods. Guys, maybe bring that up this week during the string of public hearings about future fare hikes?